Friendship
by Dreaming of Everything
Summary: When Ino realized she liked Sakura as more than a friend, her first instinct was to get aggressively heterosexual at her. Slash of the InoSakuraIno variety. Oneshot.


**Friendship**

**By Dreaming of Everything**

**Disclaimer**: I do not own the world, characters or events of Naruto. Which is… Kind of obvious. To the point where it's painful.

**Author's Notes/warnings**: Potential **SPOILERS** for manga chapters up to the Sasuke retrieval arc. Also, there will be **slash** of the girl-on-girl variety—please do not complain about the pairings in your review. Please note that this is a **oneshot**, and there will be no more chapters to it. The fic itself is placed somewhere in the time jump.

oOoOoOo

When Ino realized she was interested in Sakura as more than just a friend, her first reaction was to get aggressively heterosexual at her.

That had been the start of that whole thing with Sasuke. Ino was perfectly aware that Sakura had been sighing about him, along with most of the rest of the village's younger female population. She, of course, couldn't have cared less about him (though _Sakura_ and him was a different matter altogether) and it made sense that she would as well. And what better way to push away all suspicion about having a crush on your best friend than by getting into a semi-violent, deeply-felt rivalry over a boy, regardless that he had never spared more of a glance in either of their directions?

That had all ended badly, both in the short term (Sakura and Ino not being on speaking terms, except to insult the other) and long term (Sakura being emotionally crushed when Sasuke showed his shallow, turncoat, traitorous self and left the village after stamping all over her heart.)

Seriously. How could Sasuke not see what he was missing? Sakura was definitely in love with him; Ino could see that, especially considering that she herself **wasn't** in love with him, despite all evidence to contrary. It wasn't fair that Sasuke was the one who got to be placed in Sakura's chuunin cell, instead of her. Not that she had been expecting otherwise. Of **course** the Nara, Akimichi and Yamanaka would be put together. It was traditional even when their parents weren't close friends and they hadn't grown up together.

Not that she didn't like Chouji and Shikamaru. True, Shikamaru was annoyingly lazy and Chouji was always eating, but they had shared their childhoods and been teamed up together and that counted for a lot.

But they weren't Sakura. They didn't challenge her, didn't understand her, and she didn't understand them the way she did Sakura.

And they were boys. That didn't help.

That, added to the fact that the chuunin cells were composed of two boys and a girl, meant that her daydreams were simply that: daydreams, of the sort that everyone has, silly and stupid and never-going-to-happen.

But then things started to change again. Sasuke showed his true self and Sakura was given the chance to move on, to let go. To reconsider her infatuation, at least.

And Ino was there.

So they became friends again. That was good.

But Ino still didn't even have any idea about whether or not Sakura even liked girls at all, let alone her. And Sakura still thought of her as just a close friend, not anything else. And Ino wasn't sure if she was _ever_ going to drag up the courage to do something about how things were.

She had nobody to turn to for advice. The only close friend she had had when she was younger was Sakura, and this just wasn't the sort of thing you brought to the attention of more casual acquaintances. A more normal crush, maybe, that was expected of her, especially now Sasuke was gone, but it just wasn't conceivable that she would be gay. It would be accepted if it went anywhere, of course; ninja could get away with murder (no pun intended) as long as they did their job effectively. Some sort of truly bizarre quirk was nearly expected, with Gai and Kakashi as model examples of the truth to that statement. If she had been a more average member of the Hidden Village of Konoha it would have been a different matter entirely, but, thankfully, she wasn't. It was one of the few times when being a ninja made life simpler.

She certainly couldn't talk to Sakura herself about it, and her only other close friends were Chouji and Shikamaru, (though she wasn't as close to them as they were to each other,) so she went to them.

They wouldn't have been her first choice if there had been any other choices. She was taking a risk telling them about her 'preferences' at all (there was a good chance they'd tell their parents, and her parents would hear from them, and she would be forbidden contact with anyone of her gender until she was safely married—or even longer—or something of that sort,) and guys at all just weren't the sorts you talked to about those sorts of things. It was most definitely a girl thing, but at least they were interested in the same gender, right?

So one day when the three of them were eating lunch after practicing she broached the subject.

"There's someone I like, and I'm not sure about how to tell them that."

Shikamaru looked over briefly, propping himself up on his forearms from his prone position on the ground, managing to tear himself away from the clouds for a minute.

"You never had that problem with Sasuke."

"Well… It's Sakura. I like Sakura."

Chouji choked on his rice and went off in a coughing fit, thankfully keeping him from saying anything. Shikamaru blinked slightly but seemed to take it all in stride, a knowing smirk on his face. Bastard.

"I think flowers are considered acceptable," said Shikamaru snidely as he sank back into his former position.

"_Sakura?_" managed Chouji incredulously.

Ino still thought Shikamaru was being a jerk, and told him as much. She had _known_ this was a bad idea, but had she listened to her better instincts? Noooo, of _course_ not. To hell with women's intuition.

Ino was fairly sure that Shikamaru had picked up on her internal mess of doubt and fear and worry and love and guilt, something in her tone tipping him off, because he added, a few minutes later and considerably more seriously, "You should tell her, certainly. You're good friends, and that counts for a lot. Probably more than you think. And you're certainly not the first person to fall in love with their best friend, no matter what gender or combination thereof the two are composed of."

"At least you gave up on that weird thing with Sasuke," said Chouji. He regained his balance, both metaphorically and otherwise, quickly. Ino let the comment about her "thing with Sasuke" drop; just didn't feel up to explaining that she had never liked him at all. She could address that just as well later as now, if ever.

"Of course, if it was me, I probably wouldn't bother."

What had she been thinking again? This was her worst idea so far, including the one where she went after Sasuke.

"Never mind," she said, voice filled with finality, fully fed up with the two of them. "Let's get back to work."

oOoOoOo

A few months of (one-sided) repressed sexual tension later, when Ino finally gave up and just _kissed_ Sakura, not able to figure out anything else to do, she was surprised when Sakura kissed back. The thought that she might do so hadn't really crossed her mind. She had figured that, once she showed her true feelings, Sakura would never talk to her again, or she would, but their friendship would continue in a more awkward incarnation, one with one more taboo subject. She hadn't been looking forward to those prospects, but, again, she couldn't figure out any other option. It probably wasn't her best plan ever, but it had sufficed.

And yes, it was awkward, at first, but there are ways around that. And yes, Sakura truly had loved—did love—the last Uchiha, even when Ino didn't, but bisexuality is a viable option, and sometimes you need to move on. For Sakura, it was probably easier that that moving on took place with a female instead of a male.

Sakura and Ino still fought, and they still understood each other better than anyone else understood them, and better than they understood anyone else. They were still _rivals_, still challenged each other—the rules had just changed a bit. It was, at the same time, surprisingly difficult and surprisingly easy to adjust to the change in their friendship.

Sometimes, people get their happy endings, despite all logic and their own best attempts to make things go wrong. Ino certainly wasn't going to complain.

--End--


End file.
